News briefs

Tribune News Service on Oct 13, 2025

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Trump offers all colleges preferential funding plan rejected by MIT

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is inviting all U.S. colleges to participate in a compact — initially rejected by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — that would grant preferential federal funding in return for commitments to specific policy changes like DEI bans, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The White House sent its Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, designed in part by Apollo Global Management Inc. co-founder Marc Rowan, to nine colleges earlier this month, asking for feedback. A few days after MIT rebuffed the proposal, the administration extended the offering to all higher education institutions, according to the person, who asked not to be identified discussing internal policies.

The move expands President Donald Trump’s latest pressure tactic beyond the relatively small circle of elite colleges and research universities that have so far been his administration’s targets. The person familiar said that a number of schools had reached out to express interest in the agreement, though they declined to name them.

“Higher Education has lost its way, and is now corrupting our Youth and Society with WOKE, SOCIALIST, and ANTI-AMERICAN Ideology,” Trump posted Sunday on Truth Social. “My Administration is fixing this, and FAST, with our Great Reform Agenda in Higher Education.”

—Bloomberg News

Amendment would enshrine parental rights in Texas constitution. But what does that mean?

AUSTIN, Texas — The rights of Texas parents to raise their children without government interference would carry the same power as free speech if voters support an amendment that would write those protections into the state constitution.

Proposition 15 will appear on the ballot Nov. 4, one of 17 proposed constitutional amendments approved with broad support by the GOP-dominated Texas Legislature earlier this year.

If passed, the amendment would make Texas the first state to add parental rights to its founding document, according to advocates. The proposal would add the following language to the Texas Constitution:

“To enshrine truths that are deeply rooted in this nation’s history and traditions, the people of Texas hereby affirm that a parent has the responsibility to nurture and protect the parent’s child and the corresponding fundamental right to exercise care, custody, and control of the parent’s child, including the right to make decisions concerning the child’s upbringing.”

—The Dallas Morning News

Following teen suicides, companion chatbots will need to refer CA users to 988

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the state’s first law regulating AI companion chatbots on Monday, but it wasn’t the one some online safety advocates and parents had urged him to approve.

For weeks, parents and safety advocates have been calling on Newsom to back Assembly Bill 1064, which would prohibit the rollout of any AI companion chatbot that could possibly harm a child, including by engaging in sexually explicit conversations or encouraging self-harm, suicide or violence.

Among the advocates were the parents of Adam Raine, a 16 year-old Rancho Santa Margarita teen who killed himself in April after discussing his suicidal thoughts with the general purpose chatbot ChatGPT.

With only hours left to sign legislation, Newsom did not comment on AB 1064. Instead, he took action on Senate Bill 243, a bill that would require companion chatbots to direct users to suicide crisis lines if they express any mention of self-harm or suicidal ideation.

—The Sacramento Bee

Trio wins economics Nobel for research on sustainable growth

Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt have won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for their research into "innovation-driven economic growth," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Monday.

The award was split, with Mokyr receiving half the prize "for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress," and Aghion and Howitt sharing the other half "for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction."

Mokyr and Howitt are based in the United States, while Aghion is affiliated with institutions in France and Britain. "Over the last two centuries, for the first time in history, the world has seen sustained economic growth," the academy said in a news release.

"This has lifted vast numbers of people out of poverty and laid the foundation of our prosperity. This year's laureates in economic sciences, Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt, explain how innovation provides the impetus for further progress."

—dpa